While touring Bloc Party’s last album, Four, Kele Okereke was compelled to create a collection of club anthems, the confident, carnal yin to his indie group’s anxious, angst-riddled yang. Much like his debut solo album, 2010’s The Boxer, guitars are virtually non-existent in the mix, with laptops at the forefront, melding dubstep, two-step and house. Trick’s key themes are largely love and loneliness, and its standout moment is My Hotel Room, which finds Kele’s lusty vocals pressed against a minimalist soundtrack, his voice textured with the sleazy zeal of a man nestled between the crisp, clean sheets of a Holiday Inn executive suite. Kele the personality is often bigger than the music he makes, but it remains a joy to hear a man once notorious for giving grumpy interviews and kicking members of Art Brut sounding so liberated.
